Emmerich Considers Stonewall Film

"The Day After Tomorrow" and "2012" filmmaker Roland Emmerich has revealed that with the "Independence Day" sequels still some time off, he's turning his attention towards a quite different kind of project first.

"I may want to do a little movie – about $12-14 million – about the Stonewall Riots in New York. It’s about these crazy kids in New York, and a country bumpkin who gets into their gang, and at the end they start this riot and change the world."

Stonewall Inn was a gay bar and makeshift shelter in New York. When the police raided it, those inside fought back with the conflict escalating into a days-long riot. Said riot lit the spark for the gay rights movement. Emmerich continues:

"It’s one of these civil rights moments, like Rosa Parks. And [yet] very little is known about it. Even gay people don’t know much about it. There are only two books written about it. I read a lot about it and was so surprised. It was the first time that gay people had shown the police that they should take them serious. And when the riot police came – this has always been fascinating for me – these kids formed a chorus line and sang ‘We are the village girls, we wear our hair in curls!’ It was such a cool thing."

The story will be told from the perspective of a young gay teen who finds himself in the Stonewall Inn and gets caught up in the riot. Playwright John Robin Bates is already at work on the script.